If you follow the general outline of last week’s financial breakdown, it leaves about $700k or so for your bench players and starting goalkeeper. Personally, I like to keep most of my bench players in the $75k-$100k range – especially rookies with high upside like Penelope Hocking and Alyssa Thompson. That leaves around $450k or so for your two requisite goalies, which gives you plenty of flexibility.
It’s no surprise that Portland’s Bella Bixby ($250k) and OL Reign’s Phallon Tullis-Joyce ($300k) are once again near the top of the list of FNWSL goalkeepers. Gotham’s strong early season has pushed Abby Smith ($100k) into a tie for second with PTJ and San Diego’s Kailen Sheridan ($350k). After Bixby, there’s very little separation between goalies – in fact, the GKs ranked #2 through #8 are separated by only 7 fantasy points, so there are many good options available. In fact, if it wasn’t for Bixby’s goal last week, there would be a four-way tie for the highest-scoring goalie in FNWSL.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, the ideal situation is to lean on one of the more expensive GKs with strong track records (Bixby, PTJ, or Sheridan) as a starter for now, and keep either Smith, Washington’s Aubrey Kingsbury, or Houston’s Jane Campbell as a backup. You can pick between your two GKs based on matchups for the time being, and if Gotham, Washington, or Houston continue to sustain their strong defensive performance, you can reshuffle: promote your backup to your starter, transfer out the more expensive goalie, and fill your second GK slot with a (real-life) backup keeper. This would lower your GK expenditure to around $300k-$350k, giving you some more money to play with at the other positions!